


better pick it up

by R_Knight



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, Phone Sex, Reconciliation, Sort Of, Stanley Cup, also sort of, post-win celebrations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15094184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: After Mike had been traded, it hadn’t felt real – hadn’t felt permanent for so long, and he and Tom had still talked almost every day, even if it was just texting each other dumb shit like 'nice fight babe' or 'burky found a new kid to cling to' or 'I think I need a hobby.'(Post cup-win, Mike gets a call.)





	better pick it up

**Author's Note:**

> I saw that video of Mike in a (his?) vegetable garden and died a bit and then I wrote this. The closest I'll ever get to a florest AU tbh. Real quick edit so hopefully I caught everything.

Mike isn’t expecting the call if he’s honest with himself. He and Tommy aren’t on bad terms – he’s not sure they ever could be, but talking to each other was difficult now in a way it had never been when they’d lived together. After Mike had been traded, it hadn’t felt real – hadn’t felt permanent for so long, and he and Tom had still talked almost every day, even if it was just texting each other dumb shit like  **nice fight babe** or  **burky found a new kid to cling to** or  **I think I need a hobby**.

Mike wasn't even sure what exactly it was that caused it now, but he remembered Tom saying something halfway through a skype call that had caught him off guard – something he hadn’t known about, something insignificant and stupid for Mike to cling to, but the sudden realization that Tom had a whole life without him now, memories and stories that Mike would never know about had been sort of shitty. And Mike's response was also like, sort of shitty. So what if it was possessive and weird, Mike had always been weird about Tom and Tom – he had been too, before Mike had been traded. Before he got over Mike and moved on with his life.

Which was maybe not something Mike should have said in a drunk voicemail to Tom one night.

Anyway, whatever, Mike had made things weird, and even though they still talked there was always the heavy air of something unsaid, an itch neither of them would scratch. It was easier to ignore throughout the playoffs though, when Tom was usually busy and even when he  _was_  free to call or facetime he was so exhausted it was easy enough to ignore the weirdness and just pretend like things weren’t broken between them.

So Mike really wasn’t expecting the call. He’d watched the game, of course he had, shoved up between his parents on a sofa, rigid with tension, heart in his throat the entire time. He’d held his breath in those last few minutes, waiting and waiting, him and the caps and what felt like the entire world, for so goddamn long. And then they’d won.

Mike had to excuse himself quickly, regretting agreeing to watch with his parents when he had to practically sprint out of the room so that they wouldn’t see him crying. It wasn’t like they didn’t know how hung up he was on the caps still, but he wanted to retain some sense of dignity and not do this whole…thing trapped between the both of them. He got control over himself pretty quickly, spent five minutes sniffling and checking his twitter feed while lingering in the hallway, until the not knowing became too much and he moved to the kitchen to turn on the TV there so that he could watch the feed. It was painful, it was so fucking painful that he wasn’t there with them, but he was also proud and like, fucking exhilarated, they  _won_. They won the cup, holy  _shit._

Mike watched them all hugging and yelling and subtly trying to wipe away tears, watched Ovi pass the cup to Nicky, of course, of  _course_ , and then he tried and failed not to cry again when it was Tom’s turn to lift the cup. He watched the feed until it cut and adverts started up, and then he went back on twitter and sat there reading and refreshing for long enough that his parents joined him in the kitchen, squeezing his shoulder and maneuvering around him as they started putting together dinner.  

He put his phone down while they ate, but once he was done he made excuses and retreated to his room to obsess over his twitter feed again, drafting and deleting half a dozen tweets before deciding that he needed to calm down before he put anything online for the world to see. He imagined for a second the deadspin article, ‘FORMER CAPITAL MIKE LATTA CRYTYPES TWEET @TOM_WILSO AFTER CAPS WIN’, and yeah, no. He’d wait till tomorrow or something.

It was late by the time he felt like he could actually fall asleep, and he was just about to turn his phone off and actually try when it started ringing. It started ringing, and the call was from  _Tom_. Mike stared at the stupid picture he had saved for Tom’s contact photo for ten seconds, utterly dumbfounded, before finally he pulled himself together and answered. The immediate blast of noise honestly wasn’t surprising, but it did make him pull his phone back from his ear quickly, wincing.

“Tommy?”

“Mike! Mikey,  _Mikey_  – we won! We won the cup!” Tom yelled at him over the background noise of whatever club he was in. Mike wanted to be annoyed at Tom for calling him so late, and drunk off his ass, but the idea that amongst the chaos and the celebrations Tom was thinking about Mike sent a warm thrill through him that Mike tried valiantly to push down.

“You sure did bud,” Mike said, finding himself laughing breathlessly, caught up in the happiness and the excitement and the celebrations that he could hear in the background. “How many drinks are you in at this point?”

“Ugh,  _so_  many, so – like, think I lost count in the locker room, it was – yeah  _yeah! Yeah, thanks, oh hold on–_ ” Tom trailed off, talking to someone else for a second, and then Mike was hearing a truly awful rendition of  _we are the champions_ sung by what sounded like the entire club. He waited it out patiently, wondered for a second if Tom would forget he was even on the phone, but then suddenly the sound was quieting and Mike could hear only the distant thump of music and Tom’s breathing.

“Mike, sorry, I just, I miss you so fucking much, and it’s amazing that we won,  _fuck_ , we won but you weren’t there and I just. I needed to call you,” Tom said, tripping and stumbling through the whole thing, earnest and drunk and ridiculous. “Ugh. I’m so drunk.”

Mike couldn’t help but laugh at that, feeling happy and bright. “Well, you deserve it, drunky. It was a tough series. Fuck, every series was a tough series, you guys are gonna be  _wiped_  when you get sober again.”

“ _If_  we get sober.”

“Sure, if,” Mike said, then paused for a second, hesitant. “I – I miss you too, Tommy. Wish I could be there with you.” Tom didn’t speak for a few seconds after that, and Mike listened to his heavy breathing, a little stuffy, wondering if he’d said too much again.

But then Tom said, “Me too,” so quiet Mike could barely hear it, and he thought: maybe not. Maybe not. A door opened in the background, the sound of music leaking out with it.

“ _Yeah, yeah, one sec–”_ Tom said to someone, then apologetically to Mike, “I gotta go Latts, but I – I,  _fuck_. I wish I could see you, wish I could touch you.”

“Yeah?” Mike asked, wondering if Tom was actually saying what he thought he was.

“Yeah Mike, yeah, but I don’t think I could help myself if I was. I think – I,  _yeah, okay, okay –_ shit, I’ll call you Mike, okay? I’ll call you,” Tom said, and then he was gone. Mike stared at his phone for a minute, wondering. And then he went to sleep.

*

Mike wasn’t expecting the second call. He was hoping for one, maybe, but not expecting it. Not yet. He was in his garden, watering the plants and trying to figure out if it was worth trying to revive a chilli plant he was pretty sure his dog peed to death, when his phone rang. He peeled off one of his gloves and slid his hand into the pocket of his shorts to grab his phone, almost dropping it and his watering can both when he saw who was calling.

“Tom?”

“ _Mikeeeeeey,_ ” Tom sang into the phone, a little too loud, a lot too drunk. “Mike, you gotta come to DC, gotta come drink from the cup bro!”  _Jesus._ Following the caps drunken celebrations on twitter was one thing, but being confronted with its very messy reality was a something else.

“Jesus, how are you still alive Tommy?”

“Mmmm, dunno,” Tom said, and for a second Mike imagined the way his eyebrows would furrow, could picture the thoughtful expression on his stupid drunk face, and he had to take a long breath. “Not sure if I am. Nicke is  _definitely_ not.”

Mike could hear the background sounds of people talking and shouting, arguing about the next –  _keg stand?_

“Keg stand?” Mike asked, then caught himself, “Wait, what do you mean Nicke isn’t?”

“Uhhh think he’s too old for this, needs to rally, hold on–” Mike sat and listened to what sounded like Tom downing an entire drink, the steady gulping and the bubbling of alcohol loud in his ear.

“Did you really need that?” Mike couldn’t help asking. He eyed the chilli plant critically while Tom finished off the bottle of whatever drink he’d downed. He could probably fix up some sort of planter that would hook over his patio railing for the chilli plants – for some reason they were the only ones that got peed on.

“Yup.”

“Sure,” Mike agreed, trying to figure out if it would be worth replanting or just starting from scratch with the chilli. The last time he’d had to scrap a crop was with the plum tomatoes, and that had been a whole mess. Damn blossom end rot.

“You busy Latts?”

“Oh shit, sorry,” Mike said, snapping back to the phone call, “I was just trying to figure out whether to try and salvage a chilli plant.” He could hear Tom bark a laugh on the other end, delighted.

“I forgot about your new hobby. When are you gonna ship some produce my way, eh?”

“I’m not shipping you anything, you can come get it yourself,” Mike said, only half joking. Even as drunk as he was, Tom picked up on it though – he’d always been able to read Mike embarrassingly easy.

“I’ll come visit you, Mike. Gotta figure out what to do on my day with the cup, maybe I’ll come steal your fresh produce.”

“You can try,” Mike said, smiling helplessly. An aphid was slowly creeping its way up his arm, and he didn’t bother to brush it off. There was a brief lull, where Tom downed another beer, and Mike listened to him drink and to the ambient sounds around him. "I hope that was water."

“So what are you wearing?” Tom said instead of answering, and Mike took a moment to choke on nothing. 

“What – am I  _what_?”

“Gardening gloves I bet,” Tom went on, oblivious to Mike’s brief meltdown. “Probably not one of those old man hats, but ten bucks you’re wearing crocs.” Mike looked down at his feet.

“I’m not taking that bet.”

“Ha! Knew it. Who needs Sidney Crosby, got my very own croc-wearing Canadian just a call away.”

Mike kept his mouth shut against the defensive argument that he used his for going out in the  _garden_  and they were breathable and waterproof but easy to put on and – and he really didn’t to get into it, mostly because nobody cared, but also because his dignity wouldn’t survive that conversation. Mike listened to someone yelling at Tom to get off the phone, something about wives and there being a time for that and a few other things Mike didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.

Instead of hanging up though, Tom told him to  _hold on Mikey_  and made his way away from the crowd for the second time now, separating himself from the celebrations so that they could talk, if only for a little while. Mike felt a little warm about the fact. And then he felt a little stupid about feeling warm about it.

“So, Latts,” Tom said finally, his voice a half octave lower than it had been a moment ago, already rough with – days now, of alcohol and screaming and singing. Mike felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “What else are you wearing?”

“Uh, I don’t–”

“You wearing those old shorts that are torn on one of the beltloops? Those are like a size and a half too small for you by the way. I just never told you because of how good you look in them.”

Mike gulped. He really should stop this before it went further, but he never did have any willpower when it came to Tom.

“Yeah,” Mike said, a little breathless, “Yeah I am.” Tom hummed his approval.

“Shirtless?”

“Yup.”

“Wish I could touch you,” Tom said, “Wish I could watch you doing your – fuck, watering your herbs or whatever, bent over in those shorts,” and Mike really had to put a stop to this before pictures of Tom jerking off in public ended up on the internet.

“Yeah,” Mike said, “Yeah, yeah Tommy, okay, why don’t you call me when you’re back at home, eh? We can facetime.” It would also give both Tom time to sober up and Mike time to freak out before they decided whether this was something they were doing. If Tom decided this was something they were doing, because Mike was ready for this the second Tom had said he missed him. At the other end there was a pause, a long groan.

“ _Mike,_ ” Tom said, drawing out the vowels the way he always did when he was crabby, “Bro, Mikey - why not  _now_?”

“Uh, because you’re in public,” Mike said, ignoring Tom’s protests of  _only sort of_ , “And you’re drunk as hell, and we can wait till you’re back home, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later Willy. Go have fun.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, love you too,” Tom grumbled, and then the call ended, and Mike looked at it for a second in disbelief.

Then he noticed that the hand holding his watering can had gone lax and the whole thing had poured out all over his poor chilli plant, the surrounding soil now waterlogged and ruined. A few last water droplets escaped from the spout of the watering can, splattering on the ground. Mike stared at it for thirty seconds, wondering if the universe was telling him something. Then he shook his head, and he set about fixing his mess.

*

So Mike was expecting the next call. Maybe not so soon though. He’d just stepped out of the shower, having washed off a days’ worth of mud and sweat, skin tingling a little where he might have gotten a bit burnt, when his phone started buzzing again. This time when he picked up, sitting on the edge of his bed with his towel around his waist and slowly soaking his bedcovers, Tom cut to the chase.

“Ask me what I’m wearing.” Mike rolled his eyes.

“What are you wearing?” He asked.

“Nothing, I’m naked. What about you?”

“Mm, a towel. Just got out of the shower. How drunk are you?” Mike wasn’t sure he could do this if it was just a one-time drunk celebration thing, but he had a feeling that maybe this was more than that. Hopefully that wasn’t wishful thinking talking.

“Drunk. Not as much as I was earlier, sober enough to know, that - that I want to do this. I’ve wanted to do this. For – a while.” Tom said it carefully, in stops and starts, drunk and nervous and that, more than anything, made Mike feel settled. Sure.

“Okay, okay, are you–” Mike tugged his towel off, moving to sit against the headboard of his bed, shivering a little, though more out of anticipation than any sense of cold. “Tell me what you’d do, then, if you were here.”

At the other end of the phone, in the quiet calm of his own bedroom, probably sticky with alcohol and sweat and dirty fountain water, apparently, Tom let out a low groan: just getting started.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr [here.](Http://rrgunns.tumblr.com) Reviews always appreciated :)


End file.
